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David Guttenfelder is an internationally renowned photojournalist now working for National Geographic. After a stint at The Daily Iowan, he graduated from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in journalism, anthropology, and West African studies.

Over his career, he has won eight World Press Photo Awards and is a seven-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in photography. He’s even bumped elbows with President Obama while covering a story for National Geographic.

Not bad for a farm boy from Waukee, Iowa.

“I always played around with cameras as a kid, and then I did a foreign-exchange study program when I was at the University of Iowa,” Guttenfelder said.

That year abroad studying Kiswahili at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, helped lay the foundation for his future in journalism.

“I had a portfolio of pictures that I had taken over that year, and that was the portfolio I used to apply for a job at the DI,” he said.

As a photographer, he was a generalist at the DI and covered a variety of stories from the News, Arts, and Sports desks.